Age 8-12

Wilson has aimed this autobiography, which takes her up to the age of not quite 12 years old, at her young readers. It concentrates on her clothes, schoolfriends, toys, seaside holidays (full of 1950s detail) and the books she liked to read. It quotes passages from her work that have come out of her own experiences. She does not try to be serious or analytical about her psyche and the book’s tone is chipper. And yet it reveals a good deal of unhappiness: parents who argued most of the time, a father who, although sometimes loving, also frightened her, and her constant sense that the happy-family image that was presented to the world was a fraud. Young Jacky envied other families their security and affection, and she was always anxiously trying to live up to her mother’s aspirations — and to keep her white ankle socks clean. One of the mortifications of her life (although her mother’s brave response was kindly) was failing the eleven-plus she sat with a head cold. And we learn that Wilson’s mother has never read any of her books.

JACKY DAYDREAM by Jacqueline Wilson, illusrations by Nick Sharratt

(Doubleday £12.99)

OXFORD LITERARY FESTIVAL

Jacqueline Wilson recalls her childhood, at the festival, on Thursday, March 22, at 4.30pm

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